In the 70s catastrophe theory was used to explain things that chaos theory explained in the 80s and the tipping point has explained for the last few years…however there is more than a grain of truth in the idea that some things have a threshold that needs to be broken down by cumulative assaults- and then it spreads like wildfire. Humour for example- if you have three funny things on a page the fourth may produce a belly laugh. It is the sheer density of humour that eventually makes people think- hey- this is really funny, rather than the individual quality of a gag. The same with feeling good about yourself- three good things one after another suddenly flip that switch and you’re really up a level of personal content and happiness and energy. This happened to me today- a talk I’m giving has sold out, then I heard a friend will be visiting Wigtown festival when I will be there and a rather tricky repair I effected on our house has worked better than I thought- all small stuff taken individually but cumulatively suddenly I am winging along feeling very good indeed- because everywhere you turn in your mind you see something good to think about. Perhaps the lesson is- since good things can’t happen everyday- maintain this happy interior landscape by having good things ready to think about whenever you are in downtime mode. The other thing is that once you are through the threshold you can hang on in there a long time after what got you there has receded, so an element of timing is involved. If you have three good things happen rapidly in succession, say, once a week then I speculate you’ll be in the highest of spirits…